Water Projects and Technologies in Asia: Historical Perspectives

This book is a collection of highly refined articles on historical water projects and traditional water technologies of international interest in the Asian region, addressing information on past water projects (mostly before the 20th century) in the Asian regions that are technically and culturally of interest and educationally valuable.

This book explores historical water projects in these regions, presenting technologies used at the time, including calculation and forecasting methods, measurement, material, labor, methodologies, and even water culture. It is expected that the old Asian wisdom of "reviewing the old and learning the new" would be realized to a certain extent in modern planning and practice of water projects.

This book will enable the reader to understand historical water projects and technologies in the Asian region. It can be used as a one-stop resource to source notable Asian water projects and their relevance to modern-day technology. In this regard, this book is expected to be of interest to a variety of audiences, including the corresponding Asian regions and other international audiences interested in Asian water history from an engineering perspective.

Hyoseop Woo is currently a (Industry-cooperation) Professor at Sejong University, Seoul, Korea. Research interests are river hydraulics, including sedimentation engineering, ecohydraulics, and NbS. He was a co-chair of the special sessions of “Historical water projects and traditional water technologies in the Asian region” in the three IAHR-APD Congresses from 2016 to 2021. Presently working as a Vice President of IAHR

Hitoshi Tanaka is presently in the position of President-appointed Extraordinary Professor at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. Served as a chairman of IAHR-APD from 2011 to 2014 and a council member of IAHR from 2013 to 2017. Research interests are fluid mechanics such as turbulent wave boundary layers, related sediment movement, and resulting morpho-dynamics in coastal and estuarine environments. Study sites are not limited to Japan but cover other regions worldwide, such as Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia, Oman, Bolivia, etc.

Gregory De Costa is presently in the position of Principal Academic Engineering, Open Polytechnic of New Zealand, Chartered Engineer, and Fellow of Engineering New Zealand. Research interests are climate change, salinity intrusion, water projects in Sri Lanka and other regions, ancient technologies, and water resources management. Presently working as Chair of IAHR-Asia Pacific Division from 2019.

Juan Lu is currently a Professor at China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, China. Research interests are water history and culture, flood control and drought reduction, Pesently working as Director of Research Center of flood control and drought disaster reduction, Ministry of Water Resources, China.